‘What is it?’ Joe’s voice boomed through the house. The next thing Pupatee knew he was in the hall, glowering at him.
‘Boy, what are you doing, put some clothes on!’ he shouted, taking off his belt as he did so. Pupatee stood there, quaking with cold and fear. Joe raised his belt and then brought it down on his brother’s bare flesh, giving him lash after lash. The children had vanished but Miss Utel came out and cried and pleaded with Joe to stop. Pupatee ran upstairs, dragging the unwearable pyjamas behind him. As he lay shivering in bed, he vowed he would not make any more mistakes and prayed that Joe would not beat him again. It was a prayer Pupatee would repeat over and over until he eventually lost faith in receiving any response. For in that house, Joe’s word and belt were law.
In those first few weeks, before Pupatee went to school, he set about exploring this strange new world. Selborne Road was as different from the farm in Jamaica as snow from hot sun. There was a constant rumble of traffic along the hard streets, and the only birds he heard were the pigeons cooing on the rooftops. Terraced houses, some with four or five bedrooms and three floors, were packed in side by side, full of people. There were far more buildings than trees.
Camberwell in those days had a very mixed population. Pupatee had seen different sorts of people in Jamaica, but nothing to compare to this. There were West Indians, Africans, Chinese, Indians and Irish, as well as ordinary white English people, all living close together. Although Pupatee was aware that he was different from many of them, and jokes were made about the colour of his skin, he never thought of it as a problem. Kids of all sorts played together. If there were divisions, they were not between races, but age groups. The kids were in league against the world of adults, and they stuck together.
Before long, Pupatee began getting to know the local kids. The skinny white boy who had called out to him that first day was Jimmy, a coalman’s son and the leader of all the kids in the neighbourhood. The black boy who had teased him was Lass, Jimmy’s right-hand man. As Lass carried on making fun of him, Pupatee became used to being the object of jokes, and eventually he even began to join in.
Sometimes Pupatee would accompany the other boys down to Ruskin Park, where he was relieved to see all the big trees, though dismayed at how bare they were. He looked in vain for mangoes or oranges, but these English trees had nothing on them worth eating.
Pupatee had never seen so many shops. There was a sweet shop and a newsagent that sold papers and magazines and birthday cards, and a big Turkish café near the traffic lights. There was a hardware store crammed to the ceiling with wallpaper, paraffin, brooms, planks of wood and tins of shiny nails. Next door there was a cake shop and Pupatee would always stop to stare at the tarts and pies and pastries topped with fruit icing. There was a shop that sold carpets and a shop that sold musical instruments; toy shops and bicycle shops, a bookie, and a store that was packed with car parts. There was a greengrocer, but it didn’t have any pawpaw or breadfruit. Next to the Odeon there was a pet shop that had mice and goldfish and kittens in the window, a butcher, a flower stall, and a fish-and-chip shop that filled the street with the smells of frying food. Pupatee couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw all these shops. In Jamaica he had only ever known two.
Pupatee also met some of his family. He had four sisters in England. Kathleen and Annette lived in Birmingham, so he only met them occasionally, but Pearl and Ivy were in London, only a bus ride away, and whenever Pupatee could pluck up his courage he would ask Joe if he could go and visit them.
Pearl lived in Brixton, seven stops away on the 45 or 35 bus, while Ivy was another nine stops on from Pearl. Pearl and Ivy were hard-working housewives, both of them gentle and kind, mothers of three and four children respectively. Pupatee felt comforted and at ease when he was with his sisters, especially Pearl who lived in Kellett Road with her husband, Mr H, and her three children, Roland, Richie and Selena. Roland was a year older than him and he and Pupatee soon became fast friends. In time, he took the place of Carl, whose companionship Pupatee sorely missed. For the next few years Brixton, with sister Pearl’s love and Roland’s friendship, would be an occasional haven from life in Camberwell with Joe.
By this time, Joe was beating Pupatee regularly. Pupatee had quickly learned not to put even the smallest foot out of place in Joe’s house – but something would always go wrong. One day, Pupatee was playing with his nephews Johnny and Terry in the back yard, and he forgot himself and swore. Johnny ran inside like a bullet. ‘Mum, Mum, Pupatee said “blood claat”.’
‘What?’ Miss Utel said. ‘Pupatee, come here! What kind of bad words are you using in front of the children?’
‘Ah no dat me seh, Miss Utel.’
‘Never mind, man, tell it to your brother when he comes in.’
His worrying started there, for Joe was due home any minute, and it was not long before he arrived like the Devil himself.
I’m glad you’ve come in time to talk to your brother,’ Miss Utel said. ‘Swearing in front of the children.’ She must have known it would mean a beating for him. Swearing was strictly forbidden.
‘What!’ cried Joe, and before Pupatee could move he was slapping him with his hand. Then he took off his belt and lashed him with it repeatedly. When it was done Pupatee crept to bed, frightened and lonely. He lay there miserably, thinking how far he was from home – but it was no use hoping Mama or Pops could help him now. He would write a few clumsy words to them whenever Joe told him to, and from time to time they would write back. But they were a long way off, and he couldn’t tell them how he really felt. They were in Jamaica and out of sight, and he was here in England with no prospect of going home. So as time passed and Pupatee learned to be self-reliant, his parents slowly faded further and further from his thoughts.
Even when Joe was out, Pupatee was never entirely happy, for Joe’s behaviour hung over his life like a shadow. After a while, whenever six o’clock drew near, Pupatee would start to feel sick and tired, for that was the time when Joe came home and he was likely to get another beating. The worst thing was when he had done something early in the day, and Miss Utel would tell him that Joe would hear about it later. Sometimes he did not understand what it was he had done wrong, and it seemed even she had given up on him. But on the occasions when he was aware of his crime, the anticipation and fear would ruin his whole day just the same. And when Joe came home and heard what Pupatee had done Pupatee would see the rage spreading over his brother who would bite his lip at the prospect of the punishment he would exact. He would order the boy upstairs, and tell him to take off all his clothes except his underpants and wait for him there.
One black day, after a beating with Joe’s belt, Pupatee foolishly told the children it hadn’t hurt. He was overheard by Joe and Miss Utel. Miss Utel only laughed, but Joe started biting his lip and giving Pupatee that crazed look. The next time Pupatee was judged to have done something wrong, Joe really beat him, using flex wire from an old electric heater. The wire was thick, and plaited together. That beating really hurt.
Sometimes Miss Utel would feel sorry for Pupatee. Joe would beat her too. In the time Pupatee lived in the same house as Miss Utel, blows from Joe broke her nose and her arm. Joe was easier on his own children, but even they were frightened to death of him. But he reserved his best – or his worst – for Pupatee. Everything Pupatee did was wrong. Unlike Pops, who had stopped beating Pupatee when he thought he had hurt him, Joe had no pity. ‘Get up the stairs!’ he would shout, and his voice echoed in Pupatee’s mind like Big Ben tolling the time.
Pupatee tried everything, from begging Joe for mercy to letting the flex hit him across the face and putting his hands to his eyes and screaming, ‘Lord, bredda, me eye, woo ho, please bredda, do!’ But somehow it seemed that this only got Joe more excited and angry. Once, Pupatee tried the trick that had worked so well with Pops and pretended that Joe had beaten him unconscious. But it didn’t dampen Joe’s enthusiasm for the task, and he just carried on with the beating until the licks made Pupatee revive again. ‘Bredda, no lick me no more, do!’ Pupatee cried, and then Joe only lashed him harder for having played dead and tried to decoy his way out of the punishment.
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